messaging

On the face of it, Xiaomi's plan must've seemed a good idea: take a leaf from Apple's playbook and offer free messaging when users turned on its Android phones. Unfortunately, MIUI Cloud Messaging instead prompted accusations of data mining and intrusion into privacy, as new Xiaomi phones uploaded the contents of the phone book, numbers from received SMS messages, and the phone's own details to the company's servers, with no prior warning.

Wearables are the immediate future, and everyone is jumping on to support them. Android Wear is the platform of choice for many, and Facebook is no different. They’ve updated their popular Messenger app to work with Android Wear, leaving your phone to collect dust in your pocket.

One of the neat things about iMessage is its ability to recognize times mentioned, offering them up as a link to the Calendar. Click on a mention of 12:30pm, and your calendar will automatically start setting up an appointment for that time. That type of feature may be coming to Hangouts soon, with Google’s acquisition of Emu.

On launch, Slingshot was a bit of a let-down. The Facebook photo messaging service mis-fired on a lot of levels, with the “send to receive” qualifier a big issue. An update has arrived for the service, fixing a few issues people had, but is it usable yet?

BitTorrent, the company, will perhaps forever be remembered for creating bittorrent, the file sharing protocol. However, the concept of a serverless system of sending packets to and fro the Internet isn't just useful for downloading large videos and files, legally acquired or otherwise. It can also be used to ensure secure and private communication lines, as Bleep, BitTorrent's latest product, tries to demonstrate.

Facebook is cutting chat support from its main mobile app on iOS and Android, following up on its promise to split the Messenger functionality out and drive users to the standalone app. Facebook users are being notified from today with an in-app message warning them that, as of around two weeks time, they'll no longer be able to rely on the chat tab in the regular Facebook app.

Sure, almost all smartwatches have some sort of notification system that will alert you to the latest messages, but rare would a fitness band advertise that same capability. And yet that is exactly what Razer is doing when it revealed that its Nabu smart wearable will integrate with popular messaging and social hub WeChat.

Facebook Messenger and Uber may soon work together, if Mark Zuckerberg has his way. A new report suggest the Facebook CEO has met with Uber to work the ride-share service into Messenger. Now you may not even have to leave your messaging app to get a ride home.

As if they haven’t had enough scorn from their Slingshot app, Facebook is toying with messaging again. This time, it comes via Instagram, where some users are seeing an invitation to try something called Bolt. It’s messaging, and it’s photo-centric. Ring a bell?

Sending and receiving text messages is like email — boring, but necessary. SMS has never been fun, more utilitarian than interactive. Two free apps could make it fun, though — adding a richer experience to what has become a mundane experience for many of us.